MOSCOW, August 13. /TASS/. Moscow has more taxi cabs than New York, Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said as the city issued its 55,000th taxi driving licence on Thursday.

Russia's capital had reached the milestone figure three years ahead of expectations and had the world's youngest fleet, the mayor announced.

Today's tally compared with 7,000 legal and 25,000 illegal taxis operating on city roads in 2011, the mayor said, noting that the average car age was three years. "Moscow's taxi park is the world’s youngest," he added.

Legal taxis carried 73 million passengers in Moscow during 2014 against 17 million in 2011, city hall reported. The number of illegal taxis was down by 70%.